Vale of Rheidol Volunteers

By Clive Higgs & Jenny Edwards, Railway Volunteers

Preparations for 2023’s volunteering work started with a surprise in November last year. One day the volunteers had dug out 25 red boxes of geraniums from the troughs at Nantyronen Halt and put them into the waiting room there, to wait over the winter. 25 red boxes containing tulip and daffodil bulbs were carried from summer storage up to the platform, put into the troughs and dug neatly in. The boxes held wet soil and we had a long day. At last we sat on a platform bench for lunch, three hours late. Jenny served out cheese rolls and mugs of coffee just as the Permanent Way Gang arrived in their Permaquip. It was an ambush. Batty jumped out, shouting ‘Stop! Stop! You can’t sit there!’. We thought he was joking but no, the gang were collecting all the benches to put inside a carriage shed to dry out. We were left standing, holding roll and mug, grumbling that not even Jesse James’ gangs had taken railway benches. There was no space in the waiting room for sitting.

In January we started work on painting the 19 benches piled high in the corridor of the shed. There were:

•Eight 6-foot benches with 2 solid GWR castiron bases and 4 planks. Quite heavy;

•Four 8-foot Cambrian Railway benches, each with 4 cast-iron legs looking like sticks and 2 planks. Quite light;

•Six 10-foot benches, each with six I-section cast iron legs and 3 planks. These were heavy and unwieldy;

•A single wooden 7-foot bench with 4 legs and 4 planks. This belonged to the (railway’s) ‘precambrian era’! It is in excellent condition having spent its time sheltered in the platform porch by Devil’s Bridge’s shop door.

We were keen to get going and carried benches along the corridor to the small working area to fettle, sand and paint them in the appropriate colours. (We painted the same colours except for the two ‘stick-leg’ benches at Aberffrwd, painted to match the Cambrian Railway greens of the station and water tanks.) We had to wait until the weather warmed to at least 5oC for the painting and use floodlights when it was too wet or windy to have the doors open. Then we had to wait until the paint had dried and hardened before moving the benches away and re-stacking them.

After all the benches were painted the P-way gang put them back onto the platforms in time for the first passenger train on March 25th. John returned to repairing the wooden sack barrow at Aberffrwd Station. The other volunteers tidied and weeded the existing station gardens, troughs and half barrels. When the display of daffodil and tulip flowers ended in May, we dug up their bulbs at Capel Bangor and wrapped these in wire mesh and hung that from the ceiling of the platelayers’ hut near Nantyronen. We hope that rats will not eat them! Last year’s red geraniums in the Capel Bangor troughs had died over the winter so they were replaced by new pink and red ones.

In the Nantyronen troughs the ‘spring’ red boxes holding the bulbs were replaced by the ’summer’ red boxes in the waiting room. But the winter had been so cold geraniums had died there as well. So new geraniums were bought or gratefully received from Jenny and planted instead.

Maureen looked after Aberffrwd gardens alone, planting antirrhinums, lobelias, cosmos, hydrangeas and some marigolds that were attacked by slugs.

At Devil’s Bridge Station, geraniums and yellow bidens were planted in the long bed by the tables. Reddish bidens were planted in the boxes at the entrance as an experiment. (Originally a Mexican plant, new biden varieties are developed each year and a red one was tried this year.) In May the entrance was spectacular with these bidens, the Chilean flame trees and the brilliant azaleas.

Since spring, the plants at all the stations and Nantyronen Halt were weeded, watered when dry and deadheaded when the flowers were dying.

At Aberystwyth the flower bed by the toilets was set up with pink geraniums, red geraniums, violas and dwarf hollies. Geraniums and wallflowers were planted in the half-barrels on the platform.

Philip organized the planting at the new Aberystwyth gardens that appeared as the Visit Wales project approached completion.

In front of the new shop and offices, the lefthand flower bed was planted with violas, yellow bidens, red bidens and Jenny’s geraniums. The right-hand bed has geraniums, violas, American Poppies, lupins and a Ginkgo Biloba tree. Behind the building is a new lawn and some Tuscan Cypresses.

Immediately around the shop there is another Ginkgo Biloba and some half-barrels, each holding polyanthus plants around a dramatic Hippeastrum.

Small whitebeam trees (Sorbus Aria Lutescens) were planted around the car park but only one has thrived. One died and others survived as base shoots just above ground level. Investigations continue!

We planted the third Ginkgo Biloba (the

‘Maidenhair Tree’) beyond the railway lines, near the new museum. Hopefully, this will do better as the species is a survivor. It is classified as the only species left in its genus, family, order and subclass (Ginkgoidae). It is now ‘the only living connection between ferns and conifers’. It evolved long before the first dinosaurs appeared, 245 million years ago. Fossils of Ginkgo leaves more than 200 million years old are almost identical to G. Biloba leaves today. Its (draft) genome is large at over 3 times the size of the human genome. The genome makes the trees durable. They are resistant to disease and insect attack and able to cope with disturbance by growing aerial roots. The oldest recorded tree is 3,500 years old and a recent study showed that trees up to 667 years old showed little effects of aging and continued to grow. In the past the Ginkgo genus diversified and spread until the early Cretaceous. As with ferns and some other early plants, the genus diversity then fell over time as the angiosperm flowering plants evolved better adaptations to disturbance. No Ginkgo fossils younger than 2.58 million years have been found except in the area in central China where the single species survived to the present time. So far the Ginkgos and most whitebeam angiosperms at Aberystwyth Station are surviving, just.

The new car park contains 3 new plant beds. The one near the site entrance was planted with Cotinus ‘Royal Purple’, yellow potentillas, Ceanothus, Hebe and Lawson Cypresses. The bed at the far end, opposite the police station has Lawson Cypresses, potentillas and the remaining base shoot of a whitebeam. There is a long, narrow central bed holding a row of 36 potentillas and a central whitebeam base.

A very busy time for volunteers Philip, Edwina, Maureen, Jenny, John, Mark, Maurice, Janet, Mike, Katharine and Clive.

Our volunteers meet once a week, and through their efforts our stations always look at their best no matter what the weather. If you wish to join our amazing band of volunteers helping to maintain our stations then please get in touch via email: info@rheidolrailway.co.uk